Rep. Kiley on Parental Rights: Transparency in Student Information

Parental Rights and Education Laws

• 🏛️ Congress has recognized the vital role of parents in education through laws like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA).
• 🔒 FERPA guarantees parents access to their child's education records and prevents inappropriate sharing of student information.
• 📝 PPRA requires parental consent for surveys on sensitive topics and mandates curriculum availability for review.

Current Failures in Transparency

• ⚠️ A significant number of school districts, over 1,200, have policies that allow or require school personnel to withhold basic student information from parents.
• 🎭 This withheld information can include the name a child uses at school and their gender identity, with some districts even creating dummy files to deceive parents.
• 💰 Evasion tactics also include making curriculum difficult to access, sometimes by charging fees for review under freedom of information laws.
• 💻 The increasing use of education technology poses further risks for FERPA and PPRA violations if safeguards are inadequate.

The Importance of Partnership

• 🤝 The core issue is not about child safety, which is already addressed by existing laws, but about respecting parental rights and supporting children through transparency.
• 🎯 Historically, FERPA and PPRA had strong bipartisan support, reflecting a consensus on the central role of parental engagement.
• 🗣️ The goal of this hearing is to return to that consensus, emphasizing that transparency and partnership with parents are essential, and keeping parents uninformed is detrimental.